The Hand beamed a plume of purest white light toward the dragon. It slammed into the machine’s head, blasting him backward into the rotted remains of the merchant ship. A white veneer of energy surged along the dragon’s neck, stretching all the way back to the platform where it completely enveloped the shuddering mass of twisted black metal.
The searing white beam also continued straight on, burning through the hull of the merchant ship as Cayce had intended. It cut a swathe through the rotten wood and scoured a wide smoking hole before it struck the headless skeleton. A second skin of blinding white light covered Zumaki’s bones from the ragged neck all the way down to the needle-sharp tip of his spiked tail.
The sword’s beam expanded then, spreading horizontally as well as vertically until the entire cavern was lost once more in a flood of blinding light. Cayce felt herself slipping away from her body as the Hand of Righteous Retribution slipped from her fingers. Darkness took her, and she thought, that’s all for me. That’s all I’ve got, and it had better be enough.
As she fell she reached for the last needle in her headdress. It wouldn’t make a dent in the mechanical beast’s hide, but she wanted to go to the next world saying she had done everything she could to delay her arrival.
Cayce awoke several seconds before her eyes could open. She was lurching left to right and back and forth, as if she were sailing in the belly of a storm-tossed boat. This might have made her nauseated if there weren’t also something huge and heavy pressing into her stomach.
There was a cool breeze on the back of her neck. Her arms and legs flopped freely below her and she felt her long hair hanging straight down past her face. Cayce realized she was being carried, not on the sea but on dry land. Had someone tossed her over the back of a massive pack animal?
“She’s awake.” Kula’s voice came from under Cayce’s left arm. Cayce blinked and opened her eyes. Through the curtain of her own white hair she saw the anchorite’s broad arm swinging below her and Kula’s thick brown mane blowing carelessly in the breeze.
“Well done, little one,” Kula said. “I promised I’d carry you down the mountain if we survived, didn’t I?”
Cayce groaned. “You did. You’re a woman of your word. Please put me down now before I return your kindness with a spray of sick.”
Kula laughed. With distressing ease, she tossed Cayce off her broad shoulders. The anchorite caught her burden in midair then gently lowered Cayce to her feet.
Unsteady on cramping legs, Cayce staggered a bit. She stood breathing deeply as she recovered her balance and her strength. When her head and stomach stopped swimming, Cayce finally looked at the remnants of the hunting party.
Kula stood nearby, as smiling and as steady as ever. Behind the anchorite came Boom and one of Captain Hask’s Soldiers. The golem was dragging a makeshift sled they had lashed together with long branches and pieces of vine. Hask lay on the sled, unconscious, motionless, and badly burned… but alive. Farther down on the sled were three bundles of tightly bound linen in the shape of human beings.
“Fost?” Cayce said to the upright soldier, but the man shook his head.
“Fost didn’t make it,” he said. “Captain Hask and I are the only survivors.”
“And Boom.”
“And Boom.” The soldier stepped forward to Cayce. “I don’t suppose you saw what happened to the big sword, did you? We couldn’t find it in the wreckage.”
Cayce shook her head. The soldier seemed about to say something else when Kula called out, “Leave her be about that sword, soldier. If not for her, you wouldn’t even be alive to ask. And if not for me, you’d still be under a thousand pounds of gold and rock.”
The soldier demurred, falling back into formation alongside Boom. Cayce watched him for a moment, then turned and walked alongside Kula.
They went on for several minutes before the anchorite spoke.
“Vaan?” she said.
“Dead,” Cayce said. “But he showed me how to beat the dragon. Even with the geas, he found a way to make me see.”
“Pixies are crafty folk,” Kula said. “You should have seen the extended pantomime he had to go through to convince me to help him.”
They walked on. Cayce said, “Do I still get paid for this?”
Kula laughed. She thumped Cayce affectionately on the shoulder, almost knocking the smaller woman off the path.
“There was no way to carry our casualties and the treasure. Not that much survived.” Kula pulled from her pack a melted, twisted ingot of fused gold and silver, which she tossed to Cayce. “You’ve earned every bit, however,” she said.
Cayce hesitated then tucked the irregular lump of precious metal into her waistband. “Thanks.”
“You should give some serious thought to your future, young lady. Since you no longer have a master poisoner to apprentice with, I thought you might consider coming to live with me in the forest. An anchorite needs to pass on her knowledge to the next generation, after all. It’s nature’s way.”
Cayce walked a few more paces in silence. “No,” she said. “No, thank you. First I’m going to sleep for a month. After that I’m going to be very careful about who I let make decisions for me.”
“A sound policy.” Kula grinned broadly. “But you did me a great service today. You did us all a great service. If you ever need my assistance, just whisper my name to the nearest tree. I’ll be there shortly.”
“That’s almost comforting,” Cayce said.
“Almost?”
“Almost. It’s mostly disturbing, the thought of all three hundred pounds of you waiting around for a message from me so you can come running. But thank you, anchorite. I can think of a lot of places your help would make a big difference.”
Kula thumped Cayce again. “Let me know if you get tired,” she said. “I could carry a little wisp like you for a year without noticing.”
“Again,” Cayce said patiently, “thanks. But I’ll try to stay on my own two feet from now on.”
It was several hours before they reached a real village, during which Boom said nothing, Kula sang softly to herself, and Cayce wondered how much the local pawn brokers would pay for a poisonous ruby ring.
The shattered floor of Zumaki’s treasure trove lay covered in black ash and metal slag. The cavern was silent but for the odd boom of settling rock and the occasional stream of dust and pebbles.
Something stirred in the center of the black field. Thin cracks ran along the surface of the brittle crust as a small humanoid figure broke through. It was featureless, charred beyond recognition, but it stood firm on its tiny legs. Across its edges, a golden glow scintillated and sparked.
The brittle black sea split again, this time near the great rectangular platform. A huge skeletal head rose from the carbonized debris, its yellow eyes gleaming in the darkness.
“Vaan,” a horrid croaking voice said. “Is that you among my guests? Have you been plotting against me again?”
A small blue pixie stepped forward out of the golden cloud that had surrounded the first figure to emerge from the black crust. His blue skin was incomplete, revealing the wires, cogs, and gears within his torso. His black eyes flashed then sparked to life, lit from within by intense white-blue light.
“No, my master,” Vaan said somberly. “I have been awaiting your pleasure, as always.”
As the dragon’s features filled out, the creature peered down at his attendant. “What are you saying, Vaan? You make less and less sense as the years go by.”